Ukraine
Documentaries
Maidan by Call Number: VIDEO 9791ISBN: 9780781515122Publication Date: 2015Maidan focuses on the Euromaidan movement of 2013 and 2014 in Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) in Ukraine's capital Kyiv. It was filmed during the protests and depicts different aspects of the revolution, from the peaceful rallies to bloody clashes between police and civilians
- All things ablaze (2014)A ground-level study of the revolutionary events of Maidan co-directed by Oleksandr Techinskyi, Aleksey Solodunov and Dmitry Stoykov showing the multi-faceted nature of the revolution, and of Ukrainian society itself.
- The Black Book of Maidan (2014)A formidable piece of collaborative documentary film-making by a group of second-year students recreating the taut emotional challenges of the experience of directly participating in a revolution.
- Euromaidan: The Rough CutProduced by the artistic collective #BABYLON’13, a collection of footage from the best Ukrainian directors of the new generation asking the audience – in the makers’ words – to “live through three months of protest” together with them.
- Stronger than arms (2019)Another resistance-cinema product of the #BABYLON’13 collective about the Ukrainian revolution and subsequent war in eastern Ukraine. The title is derived from a phrase one of the film-makers heard: “Your cameras are stronger than arms.”
- Varta1, Lviv, Ukraine (2015)Documentary exploring the activities of the Automaidan movement, a group of activist drivers who used the digital radio channel Varta 1 to briefly patrol the streets of Lviv after the police withdrew in response to the angry protests of February 2014.
- War note (2020)A diary film of personal videos of Ukrainian soldiers who have been defending Donbas since 2014 shows the war in unprecedented close-up. The captions indicate that some of the diarists did not survive the conflict.
Feature Films
- KomissarCall Number: VIDEO 10905Publication Date: 2007A dedicated soldier of the newly-formed Soviet army becomes pregnant has to make a choice between becoming a mother and the needs of the Revolution. Set against the Russian Civil War, Klavdia Vavilova has a reputation in her unit as a selfless fighter, but her unexpected situation not only forces her to temporarily leave her comrades, her commanders have placed her in the household of a family of Ukrainian Jews. As the humanity and suffering of those living outside the party apparatus becomes apparent, Vavilova's emotions grow increasingly conflicted. Her tenuous situation turns dire when her unit returns for her and she is confronted with a final chance to show her loyalty to the cause.
- Three complete classics of the Soviet avant-garde.Call Number: VIDEO 5283In Earth, workers on the Ukrainian farms struggle to use the land for what they think are the best purposes. Reflects the agricultural collectivization that was going on in the Soviet Union at the time this film was made. The end of St. Petersburg offers a view of changing conditions in Russia as interpreted by a young peasant who lived through the upheaval in St. Petersburg which culminated in revolution in 1917. Surveys the events of the war years, the overthrow of the Czarist regime, and the final establishment of the people's government and the transition from St. Petersburg to Leningrad. In Chess fever, a young man's passion for the game threatens to wreck his marriage.
- Oxygen Starvation (1992)One of the first non-state funded films of an independent Ukraine, this study of a Ukrainian soldier dealing with the traditional abuse handed out to new recruits in the Soviet army is based on the real-life experiences of director Andrii Donchyk and writer Yurii Andrukhovych.
